1. SEE-GRID-2
Advancing South-East Europe
into the eInfrastructure era
www.see-grid.eu
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The SEE-GRID-2 initiative is co-funded by the European Commission under the FP6 Research Infrastructures contract no. 031775

2. Outline
SEE-GRID-1 project May 2004 - May 2006:
results
SEE-GRID-2 project May 2006 - May 2008:
Definition
Objectives
Recommendations for greenfield regions and
related projects
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 2

3. The SEE-GRID-1 initiative
Contribute to building a worldwide Infrastructure by expanding
the “eInfrastructure inclusion” into South-East Europe
SEER
EN
SEE
REN
> http://www.see-grid.org
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 3

4. Grids: regional expansion 2004-08
EGEE, BalticGrid. DEISA
peer cooperations
SEE-GRID
EUMEDGRID, EXPRESS
EELA, EXPRESS
EUChinaGrid
EXPRESS
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 4

5. SEE-GRID-1 project partners:
the regional dimension
Contractors
GRNET Greece
CERN Switzerland
SZTAKI Hungary
IPP-BAS Bulgaria
ICI Romania
TUBITAK Turkey
INIMA Albania
BIHARNET Bosnia-Herzegovina
UKIM FYR of Macedonia
UOB Serbia-Montenegro
RBI Croatia
Third Parties
18 universities / research centres
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 5

6. SEE-GRID-1 key results:
infrastructure
Large, distributed infrastructure
spanning all countries:
Including EGEE-SEE sites, without GR
and HU: 30 sites, 450 CPUs
150 CPUs in 20 non-EGEE-SEE sites
LCG-2 MW on Scientific Linux
Support the SEE-GRID Virtual
Organization
Interconnection of SEE sites by P-
GRADE portal
Catch-all SEE-GRID CA operational
Overlap with EGEE production
Operations centre management
solutions deployed: a number of
monitoring tools, helpdesk, sites
database, etc…
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 6

7. SEE-GRID and EGEE
Infrastructure overlapping and complementing to EGEE
SEE-GRID open to new “fresher” sites
SEE-GRID open to new applications
EGEE-wide VOs
SEE-GRID VOs
EGEE-SEE core services
SEE-GRID core services
EGEE-SEE Grid SEE-GRID Grid
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 7

8. SEE-GRID-1 key results:
applications
2 regional grid applications
developed:
Search Engine for South-East
Europe (SE4SEE) for Grid-aided
web-crawling & data indexing.
Volumetric Image Visualization
Environment (VIVE) for medical
images and other static or time-
dependent scalar and vector 3D
fields
Both have been extensively
tested and used in the SEE-GRID
infrastructure
EGEE applications are deployed
on the sites which have been
included in EGEE-SEE ROC and
thus support these VOs (HEP,
BioMed + other EGEE VOs!)
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 8

9. SEE-GRID-1 key results: - human
network
The Human Network that will outlive the
project
Dissemination
Policy and concertation
Conferences and publications
Relationships with other projects
Donations
NGIs
Trainings
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 9

10. SEE-GRID-2 project partners:
expansion
Start date: 01/05/2006
Duration: 24 months
Contractors Total Budget: 2,028,886 Є
GRNET Greece
CERN Switzerland
SZTAKI Hungary
IPP-BAS Bulgaria
ICI Romania
TUBITAK Turkey
ASA/INIMA Albania
UoBL Bosnia-Herzegovina
UKIM FYR of Macedonia
UOB Serbia
UoM Montenegro
RENAM Moldova
RBI Croatia
3 types of countries
Third Parties
27 universities / research centres
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 10

11. SEE-GRID-2: new directions
Policy-focused deployment strategy
Shift priority from a “top-down” approach (i.e. from regional project
execution to national implementation) towards a a “bottom-up” approach
(from national priorities, cooperation, and innovation to regional
cohesiveness)
Achieve Grid uptake and buy-in beyond the “usual suspects” of the R&E
community (-> government, policy-makers, dialogue with industry…)
Growth of infrastructure
Expand regionally to include new countries/areas and widen the SEE
eInfra community
Expand nationally to include new sites/institutes and strengthen
collaboration in each country
Application-driven deployment approach
serve the needs of diverse and multi-disciplinary communities
extend the user-base – USE the grid, USE the network, USE the
Infrastructure
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 11

12. Work organization
WP1 - Project management
WP2 – Sustainability
Studies and Strategies for
sustainable operational,
organizational and policy schemes
WP3 - eInfrastructure expansion
and operations support
WP4 - User community
enlargement and applications
support
WP5 - Training, dissemination and
communication
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 12

13. SEE-GRID-2 objectives:
ensure sustainable development
Clear NGI strategy
Budapest
National government commitment Oradea
and support for incubating NGIs Szeged
Cluj-Napoca
Targo-Mures
Arad
Subotica Timisoara
Build solidarity and cooperation
Brasov
Novi-Sad
Resita
with research and academic
Derventa Brcko Belgrade Turnu Severin Ploiesti
Bjeljina
Slatina Pitesti
organizations at national level
Doboj Sabac Bucharest
Zvornik
Banja Luka Craiova
Vlasenica
Sarajevo Kragujevac Ruse
Nis Pirot Veliko
Engage regional and national user
Sevlievo Tarnovo
Vranje Sofia
communities Titov Veles
Skopje
Plovdiv
Kardzali
Tirana Prilep
Xanthi
Ohrid Bitola
Elbasan Drama
Build long-term operational
Edessa Serres Komotini
Tepelene
Korce
Gjirokastra Florina Thessaloniki
solutions: operations centres, CAs,
Beroia
Ioannina
Larissa
etc, in each country Preveza
Lamia
Mytilini
Agrinio Livadia
Chios
Patra Athens
Samos
Syros
Rhodos
Chania Iraklio
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 13

14. SEE-GRID-2 objectives: upgrade
SEE grid infrastructure
Upgrade the capacity of the regional pilot
infrastructure
Guarantee stability and interoperability of
the infrastructure
Support the accreditation of national Grid
CAs.
Strengthen operations at national level
Deploy portal technology for accessing the
grid and supporting application
development and deployment
Draw upon deployment experience/results
of other grid projects (EGEE/EGEE-II,
EUMEDGRID, BalticGrid, EELA, etc)
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 14

15. SEE-GRID-2 objectives:
strengthen the human network
Liaise with and beyond SEE
user communities
Training events
at regional level for site
admins and end-users
at national-level
Dissemination events
at regional level for
policymakers and public at
large
at national-level
Regional eInfra projects Policy
Workshop – September in
Geneva!
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 15

16. Current infrastructure
Number of Countries: 11
Number of Sites: 31
Number of CPUs: 540
TBs of Storage: 11.64
Migrating from LCG to gLite
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 16

17. Infrastructure management:
Monitoring
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 17

18. Infrastructure management:
Helpdesk, database, wiki
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 18

19. Using the infrastructure
Going to website www.seegrid.eu
Talking to the SEEGRID representative in the country
Obtaining a certificate from SEE-GRID catch-all CA
Joining the SEE-GRID VO
Asking local country Grid team to provide support
Currently 10+ new applications under development,
~20 in the course of the project
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 19

20. Strategic priority: NGIs
Formation of stable NGIs is the key to long-term
sustainability
National Grid Initiatives are concertated efforts taken
at National level in order to deploy, operate, and
expand grid infrastructures in a coherent and
coordinated way
Usually involves the inter-connection and inter-
operation of academic and research-based resource
centers under an umbrella of a national program
aiming to integrate the available resources in order to
establish an e-Infrastructure for the benefit of the R&E
(e-Science) community, and in the long-term for the
society at large
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 20

21. “A roadmap for establishing
NGIs”: first recommendations
SEE-GRID Policy Workshop: held in Nov 2004 in The Hague during the
EU Grid leadership week / 2nd EGEE conference
No (product-quality, high-performing) grid without a (product-quality,
high-capacity, reliable) network
“Web of trust” that brings human capital together
Exploit existing infrastructure and provide alternative technical
roadmaps
Homogeneity of all available infrastructure/resources is not realistic
Key issue is interoperability
Study both “best-practices” and “bad-practices” in grid-advanced
regions and countries
Sustainability is achieved through coordinated and complementary
actions.
No single instrument/framework can address all issues of e-Infrastructure
expansion and deployment
Political support is of primary importance, even more than available funding
and technology solutions
A "champion" is needed to drive things per region/country / committed end-
user community
• -> http://www.see-grid.org/Policy.pdf
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 21

22. Greenfield regions: further
recommendations
Carry out complementary but coordinated actions
Training!
NGI establishment, but allow for separate national
strategies/agendas of NGIs: no sliver bullet
Broad partnerships through MoUs and joint work: EGEE,
SEEGRID, other regions
Use EC financing as seed money – seek other sources
Organize in federations with clear relations and modus operandi;
scalable structure needed
Distribute Grid and management services to spread the know-
how and ensure joint responsibility and control
Aim to have possibility of stand-alone operations, independent on
related federated Grids and projects
Adopt good technical solutions but also pursue alternatives
Have clear/quantified target/criteria for migrating to EGEE
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 22

23. SEE-GRID-2 long-term strategy
Strategic success metrics of regional Grid initiatives:
not Gbps/sec
not the number of nodes
not the TBs of storage
The initiatives are puzzle pieces of RTD efforts to sustain regional
development
Increasing the retention of talented scientists in the region
Pursuing joint R&D efforts among countries in the region
Making available the benefits of the Information Society for citizens
Easing the digital divide between the region and the countries at other side
of spectrum
Improvement of regional competitiveness in all market sectors
Regional political stability and cohesiveness
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 23

24. Conclusions
SEE-GRID was the first step for regional
eInfrastructure integration
SEE-GRID-2 is the next step towards
SUSTAINABLE Grid-related ACTIVITIES (NOT
just infrastructure!) in the SEE region
SEE-GRID-2 is open for discussions, feedback,
inputs to other related regional initiatives
SEE-GRID-2: Advancing South-East Europe into the eInfrastructure era 24